PROGRAM INFORMATION

HIGHLANDS RANCH - ThunderRidge High School

9/28/2011 to 1/11/2013

CSU ALP Install Team: Mike Kostrzewa (taking picture).

DATA DETAILS

September 28, 2011 to January 11, 2013:

An anemometer tower and wind vane were installed on September 28, 2011 on the campus of ThunderRidge High School. The sensors are mounted on a light pole near the entrance to the school's main parking lot, about 150 feet from the school building. The site has good access to NW/SE wind, but should be partially blocked by the school building from the north.

All data is collected using an NRG #40 Calibrated Anemometer and NRG #200 Wind Vane. The certification for the anemometer is as follows:

This equipment feeds into an NRG Wind Explorer data logger. All data plugs will be sent to the Colorado ALP at Colorado State University for analysis. This equipment feeds into an NRG Wind Explorer data logger. All data plugs are sent to the Colorado ALP at Colorado State University for analysis. The data plug files and text versions of these files are given below.

It is important to note that these are the raw files without any compensation for offset.

Using this data, an analysis of the wind resource report was developed using Windographer 2.4.6. For this data an offset of +30° was applied to the wind vane data. This data was flagged for icing in two ways:

1. Any wind speed data where the wind speed was less than 0.5 m/s for 3 hours or more was flagged and not included in the wind resource analysis calculations
2. Any wind direction data where the wind direction varied by less than 3 degrees for 6 hours or more was flagged and not included in the wind resource analysis calculations

A summary report, the combined data files (with and without the validation analysis), and the Windographer files (with and without the validation analysis) are given below:

• Highlands_Ranch_3955_2011_0928_to_2013_0111_Summary_Report.pdf
• Highlands_Ranch_3955_2011_0928_to_2013_0111_without_data_validation.windog
• Highlands_Ranch_3955_2011_0928_to_2013_0111_without_data_validation.txt
• Highlands_Ranch_3955_2011_0928_to_2013_0111_with_data_validation_flagged_offset_30.windog
• Highlands_Ranch_3955_2011_0928_to_2013_0111_with_data_validation_flagged_offset_30.txt

Interim Wind Resource Summary

Highlights of the wind resource to date at this site are shown below:

Windographer was used to match up the wind at this site with the performance curves of some common turbines of various sizes and various heights. The table below shows the results. For the larger turbines, the tower height was increased to account for the larger turbine blades - the wind resource was extrapolated to these higher heights. Keep in mind that the larger and the higher the turbine, the better the wind and the greater the output. But of course, as the tower heights and turbine sizes increase so does the cost.

Keep in mind too that listing a particular turbine doesn't imply an endorsement - not does it imply that installing a particular turbine model is feasible or recommended for a particular site. For consistency, the larger turbines are included even at sites that where they may not be practical so that one can compare the relative production of different sites.

IMPORTANT: No turbine losses are included in the power, energy, and capacity factor values in the table. Typically, turbine losses can be 5-20% to account for maintenance downtime, icing/soiling and losses from other turbines in a wind farm. Users wanting to be conservative in the performance projections should multiply the power, energy, and capacity values by (1- % losses) to account for these losses.

For more information Contact Us!